


Treachery

by goldtoashes, heirsofbrokenlegacies (jarofhearts)



Series: Discord [10]
Category: TOLKIEN J. R. R. - Works & Related Fandoms, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Badass Lúthien, Canonical Character Death, First Age, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Internal Monologue, M/M, Mairon Makes Bad Life Choices, Mairon Makes Good Life Choices, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-10
Updated: 2020-01-10
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:22:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22201774
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/goldtoashes/pseuds/goldtoashes, https://archiveofourown.org/users/jarofhearts/pseuds/heirsofbrokenlegacies
Summary: After losing Tol Sirion, Mairon makes a radical decision.
Relationships: Beren Erchamion/Lúthien Tinúviel (implied), Morgoth Bauglir | Melkor/Sauron | Mairon
Series: Discord [10]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1537228
Comments: 6
Kudos: 23





	Treachery

You lost.

The awareness became painfully clear even as everything around you seemed to blur and shift out of focus. The frames of your vision slowly turned blood-red, melting into the dark night sky above. Your blood was trickling onto the dark rock below, your powers wasted in all the desperate attempts to break free from the crushing weight on top of you and the jaws holding your throat in an iron-like grip that did not allow you to breathe. 

_ So this is how dying must feel for the Children _ , you wondered detachedly as you finally ceased your struggling. You didn’t have any fight left in you.

Your gaze strayed to Thuringwethil, who lay still and broken on the bridge, eyes empty, blood still trickling from her mouth. Her ëala had fled her body with a pained, enraged and desperate screech, clinging to her form for as long as she could. You felt a sharp stab of pain, knowing that she had fallen trying to protect you. That her sacrifice had ultimately been in vein just made it worse.

Next to Thuringwethil, the half-elf stood and looked down at her broken fána, something beautiful and terrible about her. And then her grey, starlit eyes fell on you and she came closer, her slender sword unsheathed and still dripping blood.

You could hear the faint whining of your wolves further back - those that were left anyway. They did not dare come closer anymore, after the Hound of Valinor had slewn so many of their pack.

“As I took hers, I will take your form and send your ëala fleeing back to your master, for you to endure his wrath and have to beg for a new shape,” she told you with steel in her voice. “Unless you relinquish your hold on these walls and all the spells you wove around them, and free the prisoners you keep within.”

The hound’s jaws eased a little at her words, not so much that you could break free but that it gave you the chance to answer her. More importantly, you could breathe, even though the first intake of air was horribly painful, with Huan’s teeth having done tremendous damage to your fána. 

You glowered at her, even though inwardly you cursed yourself for your own stupidity and your carelessness, so very much unlike you. But you hadn’t been able to think straight anymore since the important prisoner that you were almost sure to be Finrod Felagund had accidentally been slaughtered in your custody without revealing any information about his identity, the location of Nargothrond, or anything else. The mere  _ thought  _ about how to deliver that message about your obvious failure to Melkor had been sufficient to make your blood run cold and send you into a state of panic. And when you had spotted Lúthien, the famous daughter of King Thingol, before your gate, you had seen the chance to fix your previous mistake, risking everything in an overly rash and heedless attempt to seize her and ending up losing everything.

You dared not even imagine what he would do to you if he learned that you had lost a strategically important fortress to nothing more than an elf-maid and an overgrown hound. You didn’t… no, you couldn’t. It was not even an actual decision. You simply  _ could not  _ face him with this.

“Alright then. I yield.” 

Your voice was hoarse, no more than a raspy whisper, and you could see something flash in her eyes that might be… hope.

“ _Do it _ ,” she said and you closed your eyes.

It nearly took more strength that you had left, to cast yourself out and tug on even one strand of the net of power you had woven around the tower. But then it all started to unravel, and it was almost a relief - one more thing you did not have to keep a hold of.

“There, it is all yours. Release me,” you hissed, as Huan did not loosen his grasp right away. His gaze, like yours, was on her, and she only looked back at you for an agonizingly long moment.

And then, finally, her head tilted in a subtle nod.

“Your freedom for theirs.”

With that, she turned her back to you and raised her arms to the tower. Her voice rang out clear and undeniable and swept away the sticky remainders of your power, like a breath of a fresh wind from the west, and the first rays of dawn flooded over the horizon.

The grip of the jaws around your neck loosened.

You did not linger to see the end of it. Gathering the last remains of your strength, you changed forms one last time. Dark wings were rustling as you leaped into the air, blood still dripping from your throat, while below you, the foundations of the fortress trembled, its defenses crumbling and the gates bursting open. You didn’t stop to look back through, not before you had left the island far behind and escaped deep into the dark forests of Taur-nu-Fuin. It was there that your wounds eventually force you so slow down and seek shelter amidst a pile of steep rocks, at least for a while.

Your body was trembling at the shock of what had just happened. You knew that the damage that had been done to your fána was bad, the smell of your own blood nearly overpowering your other senses. Yet you had already taken worse when it came to physical injury. No, it was not the damage but the terrible implications of what had just happened that started to come through.

Draugluin, the most loyal and smart of your wolves, was dead, and Thuringwethil, your valued messenger - your confidant even - was gone. It hurt deeply, you were not going to deny that. You did not know whether she would return to Melkor or not. But it hardly mattered, because for yourself, you had just slammed that door shut with a vengeance.

The next realization sank in slowly, drip by drip, just as the constant dripping of your blood against the rock.

You had just betrayed him.

_ Him.  _

The most powerful Vala in all of Arda. 

And you had not even hesitated for a moment to do so. 

The realization was a shock in itself. How often had he mocked you, teased you mercilessly that whatever he chose to do to you, you would stay,  _ had  _ to stay with him. And you had endured it, all of it, the mockery, the humiliation, the painful violations of both your body and your mind, because you believed he was right.  _ Knew _ that he was right. 

But then, if he was right, how could it have been this easy to betray him? And how was it that, now the worst of the shock was over, you felt consumed by a perverse sense of malicious joy, a maddening feeling of spitefulness?

You had just  _ betrayed  _ him.

The Pass of Sirion had been of utmost strategic importance.  _ You  _ had been of utmost strategic importance. He had just lost both in one fell swoop. And once he would realize that you were not going to come back on your own…

No, you were not going back. 

How could you, knowing how  _ mad _ he would be, how utterly furious that you had eventually managed to prove him so very wrong in his vain self-importance?

A part of you knew that it was not going to be that easy. You had not lost your mind, after all, or at least you did not hope so. He would want you back after all, whether you were willing or not. He would search for you, and you would need all your cleverness and your power to avoid him, given how far his hand reached these days. You would be alone in this, you did not have any allies, only enemies all around you. And, perhaps the most difficult of your problems: You were nearly drained of your powers, the Discord in your blood growling with savage hunger. 

You knew all this, but for the moment, for this sweet, precious moment, you decided not to care. You would save your regrets for later, when his thralls would eventually find you and drag you back before his feet. 

A long, distant howl cut through the darkness of the forest, still far away, yet your sensitive ears picked up the familiar sound of the survivors of your once mighty pack. Maybe you would not be all alone in this. Maybe there was a chance to be had here.

After all, he had always underestimated your will to defy him, had he not?

_ Your freedom for theirs. _

You wondered if she would be right about this in more ways than one.

**Author's Note:**

> We do hope you like our portrayal of Lúthien! We wanted to make some subtle changes to what we read in canon to make it a little more realistic for our version of this world. We haven't said so before, but we also treat sources like the Silmarillion as an in universe history account - which also means that it is at times unreliable and influenced by the characters' opinions, loyalties, experiences and so on. Maybe that's how she ended up without a sword in that account that does not amount to (our) reality. ^^


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